The growth of digital books was underlined again with the release of a new Bookstats survey showing that net revenue for publishers from e-book sales in 2011 hit $2.07 billion, compared to $869 million in 2010, the New York Times reported, noting that e-books accounted for 15.5% of publishers' total revenues. The annual survey, conducted by the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers, includes data from nearly 2,000 publishers.
Children's books grew 12% in 2011, to $2.78 billion from $2.48 billion in 2010. Print sales declined 8.3% in the wake of the digital surge, falling to $11.1 billion in 2011 from $12.1 billion the previous year. Overall, publishers' net revenues in 2011 were $13.97 billion, up from $13.9 billion in 2010, an increase of 0.5%.
While online retailing increased to $5.04 billion in 2011 from $3.72 billion in 2010, "brick-and-mortar stores remained the largest sales channel for books, the survey found. Many in the publishing industry worried that the disappearance of Borders would have a significant effect on the overall business, but analysts said it appeared that many of those customers had moved to other retailers," the Times wrote.
"I would never dare to call an industry healthy, but it certainly seems to be robust," said Dominique Raccah, the publisher of Sourcebooks and BISG co-chair. "We, as an industry, appear to be getting books into more hands."